“3 or 4 families in a Country village is the very thing to work on ”

“the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush as produces little effect after much labour”

Jane Austen(1775-1817)

In both moral outlook and prose styleshe is closer to the 18th-cent. realists than to her contemporaries (Gothicists,Sentimentalists and Romanticists). reason over passion subtle satire and irony towards the silly, snobbish, stupid, worldly and vulgar style: order, reason, accuracy and gracefulness

Life

• Sense and Sensibility (1811)

• Pride and Prejudice(1813)

• Mansfield Park (1814)

• Emma(1815)

• Northanger Abbey (1818)

• Persuasion (1818)

                            

Sir Walter Scott on Jane Austen:That young lady has a talent for describing the

involvements and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with. The big bow-wow strain I can do myself like any now going; but the exquisite touch, which renders ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting, from the truth of the description and the sentiment, is denied to me.

—From "The Journal of Sir Walter Scott," March, 1826.

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Emma was written in comic tone and told the story of Emma Woodhouse, who finds her destiny in marriage. During the story Emma, a snobbish young woman, develops into someone capable of feeling and love.

Plot Characters Style Form and Structure Setting Point of view Theme Motifs

Major E

lemen

ts of An

alyzing F

iction

Major E

lemen

ts of An

alyzing F

iction

• A plot is a causal sequence of events, the "why" for the things that happen in the story. The plot draws the reader into the character's lives and helps the reader understand the choices that the characters make.

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• Plot

“a young couple destined to be married have to overcome the barriers of pride on the part of the hero and prejudice on the part of the heroine”

•Chapter 6: Sir William Lucas: “Mr. Darcy, you must allow me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner.”

• Chapter 3:

Darcy on Elizabeth: “She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.”

Analysis of Major Characters

The Bennet Family

Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Bennet

Chapter One

• Chapter 20:

Mrs. Bennet 

Mr. Bennet’s wife, a foolish, noisy woman whose only goal in life is to see her daughters married. Because of her low breeding and often unbecoming behavior, Mrs. Bennet often repels the very suitors whom she tries to attract for her daughters.

•Chapter 13:Mrs. Bennet: “Why Jane -- you never dropt a word of this, you sly thing!”

Mr. Bennet -  The patriarch of the Bennet family, a gen

tleman of modest income with five unmarried daughters. Mr. Bennet has a sarcastic, cynical sense of humor that he uses to purposefully irritate his wife. Though he loves his daughters (Elizabeth in particular), he often fails as a parent, preferring to withdraw from the never-ending marriage concerns of the women around him rather than offer help.

The first sentence of Pride and Prejudice

• IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

• It stands as one of the most famous first lines in literature. In this statement, Jane has cleverly done three things:

1. Plot

• She has declared that the main subject of the novel will be courtship and marriage and offers a miniature sketch of the entire plot which concerns itself with the pursuit of “single men in possession of a good fortune” by various female characters.

2. Tone

She has established the humorous and satirical tone of the novel by taking a simple subject to elaborate and to speak intelligently of.

3. Pride and Prejudice and 18th century

It also defines Jane’s book as a piece of literature that connects itself to the 18th century period. Pride and Prejudice is 18th century because of the emphasis on man in his social environment rather than in his individual conditions. The use of satire and wit, a common form of 18th century literature, also contributes to label the book as 18th century.

Jane Bennet• The eldest and most beautifu

l Bennet sister. Jane is more reserved and gentler than Elizabeth. The easy pleasantness with which she and Bingley interact contrasts starkly with the mutual distaste that marks the encounters between Elizabeth and Darcy.

Elizabeth Bennet

The novel’s protagonist. The second daughter of Mr. Bennet, Elizabeth is the most intelligent and sensible of the five Bennet sisters. She is well read and quick-witted, with a tongue that occasionally proves too sharp for her own good. Her realization of Darcy’s essential goodness eventually triumphs over her initial prejudice against him. Elizabeth Bennet.

Mary Bennet 

The middle Bennet sister, bookish and pedantic 迂腐 .

Catherine Bennet

The fourth Bennet sister. She is, like Lydia, girlishly enthralled with the soldiers.

被迷惑

Lydia Bennet

 -  The youngest Bennet sister, who is devoted to a life of dancing, fashions, gossips and flirting, immature and self-involved. Unlike Elizabeth, Lydia flings herself headlong into romance and ends up running off with Wickham.

Charles Bingley Darcy’s considerably wealthy best fr

iend. Bingley’s purchase of Netherfield, an estate near the Bennets, serves as the impetus for the novel. He is a genial, well-intentioned gentleman, whose easygoing nature contrasts with Darcy’s initially discourteous 不恭的，不礼貌的 demeanor 举止，行为 . He is blissfully uncaring about class differences.

A wealthy gentleman, the master of Pemberley, and the nephew of Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Though Darcy is intelligent and honest, his excess of pride causes him to look down on his social inferiors. Over the course of the novel, he tempers his class-consciousness and learns to admire and love Elizabeth for her strong character.

Fitzwilliam Darcy

George Wickham

A handsome, fortune-hunting militia officer. Wickham’s good looks and charm attract Elizabeth initially, but Darcy’s revelation about Wickham’s disreputable past clues her in to his true nature and simultaneously draws her closer to Darcy.

Mr. Collins

A pompous, generally idiotic clergyman who stands to inherit Mr. Bennet’s property. Mr. Collins’s own social status is nothing to brag about, but he takes great pains to let everyone and anyone know that Lady Catherine de Bourgh serves as his patroness. He is the worst combination of snobbish and obsequious 逢迎的，谄媚的 .

Lady Catherine de Bourgh

A rich, bossy noblewoman; Mr. Collins’s patroness and Darcy’s aunt. Lady Catherine epitomizes 代表 class snobbery, especially in her attempts to order the middle-class Elizabeth away from her well-bred nephew.

Charlotte Lucas  Elizabeth’s dear friend.

Pragmatic and six years older than Elizabeth, Charlotte does not view love as the most vital component of a marriage. She is more interested in having a comfortable home. Thus, when Mr. Collins proposes, she accepts.

Miss Bingley• Charles Bingley’s sn

obbish sister. Miss Bingley bears inordinate disdain for Elizabeth’s middle-class background. Her vain attempts to garner Darcy’s attention cause Darcy to admire Elizabeth’s self-possessed character even more.

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• Style is usually defined by the writer’s choice of words, figures of speech, devices, and the shaping of the sentences and paragraphs.

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read Chapter One

• Pride and Prejudice is told in a lucid, graceful, economical narrative style without a single superfluous word, and it frequently breaks into dialogues so lively and so revealing of characters.

Lucid: 1. 清澈的，透明的。 2. 清楚

的；明白的。

STRUCTURE

• An interweaving of plot and subplots

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• The main plot follows the far from smooth course of the romance between Elizabeth and Darcy and the conflict of his pride and her prejudice. Their feelings, born of first impressions, are not the only obstacles between them. Three subplots complicate their relationship.

• The first is Bingley's attraction to Jane Bennet and Darcy's intervention to save his friend from what he sees as an undesirable marriage. The second is Wickham's involvement with the Darcy family, and his ability to charm Elizabeth and deepen her prejudice against Darcy. The third is Charlotte Lucas' marriage to Mr. Collins, which throws Elizabeth and Darcy together and sharpens their differences.

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• Austen maintains an air of suspense to the very end. In the end, all three subplots contribute to the resolution of the principal plot, and the hero and heroine come together in happiness at last.

Setting?• The location of a story's action

s, along with the time in which it occurs, is the setting.

Setting• There are few descriptions of the se

tting in Pride and Prejudice. The main actions of the novel are the interactions between opinions, ideas, and attitudes, which weaves and advances the plot of the novel.

• setting (time)  · Some point during the Napoleonic Wars (1797-1815)

• setting (place)  · Longbourn, in rural England

Point of View?• In fiction, who tells the

story and how it is told are critical issues for an author to decide. The tone and feel of the story, and even its meaning, can change radically depending on who is telling the story.

The point of view in Pride and Prejudice is limited omniscient; the story is primarily told from Elizabeth Bennet’s point of view, but not in the first person. (Austen writes in the third-person limited point of view, in which the "narrator tells the story in the third person but confines narration to what is experienced, thought, and felt by a single character through a single consciousness." ) •She [Elizabeth] perceived her

sister and Bingley standing together.

Theme?

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

1. Something on human nature: the first im

pression

2. Love and marriage

The first impression

Our first impressions, according to the author, are usu. wrong, as is shown by those of Elizabeth. In the process of judging others, Elizabeth finds out sth. about herself: her blindness, partiality, prejudice and absurdity. On the other hand, Darcy too learns about other people and himself. In the end, false pride is humbled and prejudice dissolved.

Love and marriage

• 3 kinds of attitudes towards marriage:• Marriage merely for material wealth and social po

sition;• Marriage just for beauty, attraction and passion re

gardless of economic condition or personal merits;• The ideal marriage for true love with a considerati

on of the partner’s personal merit as well as his economical and social status.

Some Motifs in P & P

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform th

e text’s major themes.

• 1. Women’s Education• 2. Status of Women

• 3. Inheritance

Women’s Education In Jane Austen’s day, it was pr

eferred that women receive a practical training on “accomplishments” of “music-drawing-dancing” for their domestic role. In those days before sewing machines, a relatively large amount of girls’ and women’s time was spent on sewing needlework,

While engaging in light conversation, or listening to a novel being read. The purpose of such accomplishments was often only to attract a husband, so that these skills then tended to neglected after marriage.

Status of Women In Jane Austen’s time, there was no real way for youn

g women of the “genteel” classes to strike out on their own or be independent. Few occupations were open to them -- and those few (such as being a governess, i.e. a live-in teacher for the daughters or young children of a family) were not highly respected, and did not generally pay well or have very good working conditions. Therefore most "genteel" women could not get money except by marrying for it or inheriting it.

Special Features of Jane Austen’s novelsAusten's main literary concern is about human beings in

their personal relationships, human beings with their families and neighbors. Particularly preoccupied with the relationship between men and women in love.

She writes within a very narrow sphere, restricted to the provincial or village life of her age and conerning three or four landed gentry families with the trivial incidents of everyday life.

Her novels are surprisingly realistic, with keen observation and penetrating analysis.

She uses dialogues to reveal the personalities of her characters. Her plots appear natural and unforced. Her characters are vividly portrayed and everyone comes alive.

Her language, which is of typical neoclassicism, is simple, easy, naturally lucid and very economical.